Bill McLaren used to call them 'perambulating man mountains', rugby's giants who run like the wind and adopt a wrecking ball mentality to their carrying.

McLaren's Scotland have had a few in their time, indeed the largest positive to come out of last weekend's mauling by the All Blacks, winger Tim Visser, is one such beast.

The Flying Dutchman, as he is better known, scored two of Scotland's three tries against New Zealand on Saturday and with four in his first three games for his adopted country, one doesn't have to wonder too hard what McLaren would have made of the 25-year-old from Zeewolde.

Probably exactly the same as he'd have made of Worcester's Nikki Walker, who at 6ft 5ins is an inch taller than Visser and who at 17 stones demonstrates a similarly straightforward quality to his play.

At least he has so far in an international career that has brought 24 caps before it was truncated by injury just over a year ago.

While Visser has gone on to fill the Walker-sized hole in Scotland's back three, the man who seemed destined to occupy said aperture is rebuilding his career at Sixways.

It is a relationship that everyone hopes is finally ready to blossom. After a couple of false starts Walker's imposing physique was given a 40-minute outing in the LV Cup win over Llanelli last Saturday.

He is expected to be given even longer at Wasps on Sunday with a view to proving his fitness ahead of next Friday's Premiership encounter with Saracens.

But for now it's softly softly. Walker has less than three hours rugby under his belt since his world fell apart in August 2011 when, having worked his way back into Andy Robinson's Rugby World Cup plans, he was struck down in the final minutes of the final warm up game by a knee ligament injury.

That cost him his final season with Ospreys, the momentum with which to start his new career at Worcester but most painfully a place at a tournament that should have been the high point of his career. He watched Scotland flop from 13,000 miles away.

"It was a dark time, if it wasn't for my kids, my second child arrived in the January afterwards, I would have struggled to get through it," Walker admitted.

"I remember the World Cup, I was struggling to watch the games. I did end up watching them but there were times when I thought 'I am not even going to get up' because I was so gutted not to be there. It was too raw. I remember being so, so depressed, it was a horrible, horrible time.

"I managed to get through it, Ospreys treated me really well and looked after me excellently. It is thanks to them I managed to come back."

Richard Hill will certainly be thanking them if Walker can rediscover the form that made his Little and Large wing partnership with Ospreys and Wales legend Shane Williams so potent.

The Worcester head coach responded to the loss of Marcel Garvey and Miles Benjamin by trying to create something similar at Sixways with ickle David Lemi playing on one wing and the anything but ickle Walker on the other.

Unfortunately it has happened just twice in the first 11 matches with Walker's return from knee surgery delayed by a pre-season shoulder injury and a hamstring pull three matches into his comeback.

"It was irritating to the max. I felt I'd had a good pre-season and was getting fit.

"I don't think I was in a good state coming here because I had just come back off my knee injury.

"But having had a good two or three months training I felt in good shape and was meant to be playing against Cardiff then I did my shoulder the week before.

"It's probably just a build up of coming back after my knee. Hopefully that's the back end of my injuries for the season and I can get a run of games going, show what I can do, stay in the team and stay fit and get a bit of momentum into my season.

"My first match back against Gloucester was really enjoyable The kick-off went straight to me so the first touch was mine and then the knee was completely out of my mind.

"It was a good start for me and coming back into a local derby in the Premiership with a great atmosphere set the tone for me. I knew then I had made the right decision.

"One of the reasons I came to the Premiership was because week in week out the games are intense, the big crowds are there. In the Pro 12 some of the games aren't so intense and you will probably find leading up to these autumn internationals that a lot of Test players have been rested and you are playing with and against so called second string teams.

"I had been at the Ospreys six seasons and I felt if I didn't take this opportunity to try the Premiership I wouldn't get another one.

"I knew they were trying to change things here and make a lot of signings, trying to progress and striving to get into Europe. It's something I thought I could help them do and hopefully I will."

Walker's ambitions don't end there. While the first players to qualify Warriors for the Heineken Cup will probably be deified in the Three Counties, the 30-year-old feels he has unfinished business on the international front.

"Ideally I'd like to get back into the Worcester team, play well and get a run of games going. If I am playing as well as I am capable of doing I am sure I can get in the Six Nations squad.

"That has got to be an ambition for me, I don't want to finish my international career getting carried off the pitch before the World Cup. I want to finish my international career playing well and doing well for my country.

"Andy [Robinson] stays in touch, he was good through my injury as well and invited me up there to do some training during the last Six Nations.

"The docs and physios are still there and because I am injured that's the reason I have not been selected during the autumn.

"I would like to think if I was playing and playing well I would be selected, hopefully that can happen in the future."

The prospect of which would presumably have led McLaren to refer to a Visser-Walker wing partnership as a 'perambulating man mountain range'.